Our World and Everything in It

I’ve already blogged that Idaho and Wyoming’s own state statistics show elk and deer populations are far over the limit for their species. The proper scientific limit for wolves to be secure from extinction should be near 3000, yet the number 1500 seems to be the norm for these states to begin to eradicate wolves because they pose a threat to deer and elk populations???

The hunt has already begun. Defenders of Wildlife states: “Locals have organized weekend eradication “wolf hunts” to kill any wolf that they find. One group tracked a wolf for 35 miles on snowmobiles before shooting it dead.” Now that’s real sporting. You know we’ve had a war going on for how long, isn’t that enough blood thirst for most Americans, or has it heightened the sense of the kill for some so much that they can’t turn it off? On the other hand, has it desensitized us to pain, suffering, and death that we just bury our heads anymore? To look forward to killing animals that are clearly being eradicated for no viable reason except for the sport is an indication of a nation’s decline in my book.

But the biggest testament to a nation’s decline is knowing full well we’re being lied to about many, many things, and doing nothing about it, even something that could be championed like this wolf slaughter issue. A study by the Dept. of Agriculture proved wolves are not attacking cattle in huge numbers either. And this N.Y. Times article just 2 years ago shows how badly the wolf populations were suffering from the parvo disease. It shows a pack of new wolf cubs that died shortly after the picture was taken. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/national/15wolf.html So in 2006, the gray wolf population declined from disease, yet two years later wolves are out of control?  What a pack of lies, and the liars head up departments in our U.S. government.

A lot of people think no big deal. But it was a big deal when the first gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone not very long ago. The rangers there have good things to say about the balance the wolves restored to the forest. As part of this reintroduction and study, many wolves are numbered, their packs have names, and some of the wolves have been viewed so much they gained notoriety and names, like Limpy, number 253M. Defenders says: “Limpy was many things to many people – to wolf-watchers, he was the hobbling member of Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak Pack. To Utahans, he was the first wolf to be seen in the state for more than 70 years.”

For wolf novices the Druid Peak Pack was the second pack introduced to Yellowstone from Canada, and one of the most observed. Check out one girls sighting at her visit to Yellowstone and her video of the Druid pack on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNeFetdSHrQ. We’re talking tourism and educational fodder here.

I don’t know if the girl saw Limpy with hind legs that were crippled in a fight. No matter now, Limpy was shot dead in Wyoming on elk feeding grounds the first day wolves were taken off the endangered list. Remember elk numbers are beyond where they should be in these states. The wolves were out doing their job. Limpy obviously wasn’t speedy enough as a cripple. Two other wolves were shot with him.

So what we have here is the beginning of a slaughter perpetrated by lies from U.S. officials to practically eradicate a species that have only reached half their peak. Meanwhile, people have posted pictures on You Tube and commented on their trips to Yellowstone and the opportunity to see the notorious wolves.

You know what this reminds me of? Natives in Africa, deprived of an education, with very little means of sustenance for survival that kill endangered species in order to take the habitat over for farming, as well as, eat the bushmeat. Once the natives are taught that protecting the animals brings tourism to the area to view the animals, and all types of new income opportunity is opened to them, they embrace it wholeheartedly and the animals begin to flourish under the native’s good stewardship.

What’s the excuse for the states of Idaho, and Wyoming? They are neither stupid nor starving, but appear to be shooting themselves in the foot relative to tourism by killing the wolves, or there are ulterior motives worth a heck of a lot more money. It can’t be the hunting industry. It will only flourish from wolf hunts for so long. A few hunting seasons and the wolves will be gone, and then what’s to shoot? Oh yeah, all those excessive deer and elk populations.

My best guess for ulterior motives still lies with Bush’s plan to reverse the Roadless Rule, where Idaho might find themselves stripped of a heck of a lot more than the wolf population. If that happens, the second largest forest in America will slowly disappear from mining, drilling, and logging. Wolf hunters could face eminent domain issues in the future and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Click on Defenders at the right to sign a petition to stop this senseless slaughter.

As for Limpy, he’s famous.  Just search “Limpy the Wolf” on the internet. There are pages of urls for him.

Today the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing regarding the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Senate held a meeting about this earlier this week. HR 2421 helps clarify that federal safeguards against water pollution must protect all waters of the United States. It may seem funny to some that this is necessary because the general public is out of touch with what has been happening to many of our established environmental laws.

The Bush administration has systematically attacked many of our longstanding environmental laws including The Clean Water Act. Big corporations and developers who seek to pollute have gone to court over the Clean Water Act. It seems they have found a loophole in the act because in many places it describes the waters protected by this act as navigable for one thing, which means if you can’t place a boat on it, well it just might not be protected—by anyone. So we’ve ended up with ambiguous rulings by the Supreme Courts, and federal agencies have issued confusing guidelines on what is or is not protected by federal law.

This leaves ponds, streams, wetlands, drain areas, and many other seasonal wet spots open to damage and destruction from industrial pollution. I’ve read over HR 2421 and what used to be described as navigable waters is now simply called waters. I also read a review on the Big Bear blogsite that it’s doubtful this bill will pass. Hunters, ranchers, and farmers won’t like it. Well more than 175 House members are co-sponsoring it, and 21 Senators so far are co-sponsoring the companion legislation. I had to comment on that site that of course the huge farming and hunting lobby doesn’t want anyone messing with their new found freedom in states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. They’ve pushed their weight around in those states to get the wolves, and bison killed, and wild horses rounded up. I believe it is to make way for more devastation of our national forests when Bush tries to weaken the Roadless Rule too. Because with these animals out of the way, no one has to protect their habitat, paving the way for more lumbering, mining, and drilling on or near our national forests.

Contact our legislators and let them know that every ounce of water is precious to us, especially with the drought that prevails in many places in our country. If anything as simple as a pond or a seasonal wetland is not covered by an individual state, as it stands right now, federal protection for that area may be challenged because the water in question is not navigable. It might not be navigable but pollute it with toxic material and it’s going to leach, or flow somewhere now isn’t it? That bad water just might end up in your well, backyard, creek, or pond. 

Read HR 2421 at: http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/bills/110/h2421ih.txt.pdf

Conveniently contact your legislators with a petition at: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/cwara0408/w5eu6wbrlmetjdd

This is a self portrait by an elephant. Catch the video on the You Tube link below. The picture was light and I had to go over the lines and couldn’t do it very well and I am an artist! Elephant painting is not new. There is Surapa of the Buffalo Zoo who paints, and quite well, although abstract and contemporary, and Lucky of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs who paints well enough to be showcased in galleries. But this latest elephant painting is a little unsettling, and should make us reconsider our attitude toward animals, especially the needless slaughter of what we deem expendable because they are supposedly inferior to us.

Many earlier explanations about animals being  inferior to humans are slowly being dispelled. For instance, the idea that an animal doesn’t recognize itself in a mirror. It supposedly thinks it’s another animal. But,  I watched Good Morning America not long ago preview another elephant whose trainer put a white paint mark on its head. When the elephant looked in a mirror later on, it immediately went to a nearby wooden fence and tried to rub it off. As far as animals not having feelings, I watched a whole herd of elephants gather around the mother of a dead baby elephant that was lying at her feet, their trunks hanging down in mourning. They stood together for a long time. Another excuse for inferiority is relative to language. Apes have successfully learned sign language to communicate with humans, and Alex the African Grey parrot was phenomenal for not only stating what something was, but also the color, and composition of the object. Poor Alex died not long ago. As I write this my African Grey, Curtis, is trying to put a hole in my sweatshirt. He calls me Ree’rah for Ria. It sounds like Astro, the dog on the Jetsons, is saying my name. Having a pet that calls you by name feels way too human. I honestly think that by treating animals with a little more respect we too could become more human again. It’s called a reverence for life.

As an English major, I had the pleasure to run across some mighty powerful classic short stories about animals. One of the most poignant stories I read was particularly relative to elephants. I don’t really want to read it again because of the intense description at the end of the story. Take the time to read ”Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. It’s short and powerful enough to bring up many ethical questions. When I think that elephants have been slaughtered for their tusks only, slaughtered because they stepped on coffee plants in a plantation that robbed them of most of their habitat, abused in circuses, given poor living conditions in many zoos because they need to belong to a large herd, like a society, not just in pairs, I have to wonder who the inferior species is sometimes. We’re supposed to have the big brains, and a conscience that leads to a big heart. But I’m not seeing a lot of that lately.

Read “Shooting an Elephant” : http://www.elephantcountryweb.com/Elliestories.html#Shooting%20an%20Elephant

About Surapa: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/NYBUFsurapa.html

About Lucky: http://www.cmzoo.org/elephantart.html

You Tube video of self portrait painting elephant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po1KEPz43AE&feature=related

The three countries of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Republic of the Congo have come together to beef up the security of Virunga National Park home to half of the world’s population of mountain gorillas, which is down to a dismal 700 in number. The parks habitat is being destroyed looking for coal, lumber, and even things like bee keeping.

These countries are impoverished and war torn, which doesn’t help the matter any. Educating the people about extinction when they look to stay alive themselves is troubling. The African nations near the park suffer from political turmoil also, making matters worse for those that seek to preserve the gorillas. An article at BBC.com said that “rebel forces loyal to the dissident Congolese general Laurent Nkunda, took over large areas of the park, forcing out the rangers and leaving the gorillas vulnerable to poachers.” And poachers will move in quickly. Just last summer 5 gorillas were shot dead like the article said: “execution style.” What would possess someone to look at something that majestic and shoot it dead? But then again humans suffering in those countries don’t fare much better. 

The article went on to say that the “10-year conservation project, which was launched in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, is to focus on greater security and ways of discouraging local communities from destroying the region’s forests.” It also said that the Dutch government is funding the first 4 years at a cost of 6 million dollars.

I think it’s smart to get other governments involved since there is so much unrest in African nations, and many times so little value for life.  The moral issues are great. Save people, or save the animals. This is a choice that we’re going to have to make more and more in the future if we don’t stop human sprawl and the resulting pollution, and don’t do something about ignorance and poverty in nations with some of the world’s most diverse wildlife.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7254357.stm
  

This week the senate will vote whether to allow guns in national parks. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that by itself ruins the idea of a “park” to me. So I’m strolling through the park enjoying the peace and tranquility but hear gunshots instead. Was it a misfire; did someone get shot; is someone poaching? So much for the organic feel I get from the word “park” knowing that in the deepest areas of the woods a real nut gets to carry a gun, shoot someone that happens by, and bury them all in one neat tidy place. OK, a little dramatic, but it still doesn’t seem right. 

Gun legislation points to the NRA and sure enough they are pushing this Coburn amendment. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican wants to allow state law rather than federal law to govern the carrying and transportation of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges, according to (ENS) Environmental News Service today. Already I see 50 different gun laws. Even people that want to carry a gun to a park will be confused. I realize Republicans favor states authority and less federal rule, but too many different rules are a reason this is not feasible. And why carry a gun at all? I don’t get it? This looks suspiciously like illegal hunting where you’re only guilty if you’re caught. And the only thing raising a ruckus relative to illegal hunting right now is wolf hunting. This amendment will obviously encourage opportunistic poaching. Curious.

What’s more peculiar about this amendment is that there is no reason offered as to why carrying a gun in a national park is necessary or relevant to anything since hunting is either controlled or prohibited in the parks. The ENS article went on to say:

On February 1, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police wrote a joint letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject the Coburn amendment. ‘Senator Coburn’s amendment could dramatically degrade the experience of park visitors and put their safety at risk if units of the National Park System were compelled to follow state gun laws,’ warned the rangers and retirees.

The ENS article also said that the Coburn amendment actually “forbids the Interior Secretary from enforcing ‘any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System…,’ and that On December 14, 2007, a group of 39 Republican senators along with eight Democrats wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging repeal of these regulations because they are ‘confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.’” These senators think it’s unnecessary to have laws that prohibit carrying loaded firearms where people hike, bike, and camp? One standardized federal law is confusing as compared to 50 different state laws? And the federal laws are burdensome to whom, the NRA? Hmm.
 
That just about says it all doesn’t it? We have a curious amendment that allows the states to do what they want in national parks like carry loaded guns while the federal government is told to butt out. The people who spend most of their lives in national parks, the rangers, write a letter advising against Coburn’s amendment, that it is not a good thing for the parks. But in the meantime the NRA gets 47 senators to urge the federal government to get rid of its regulations relative to possessing a firearm anyway. Wonder how much this cost the NRA? If this amendment passes it will cost the parks their reputation for tranquility and peace, and a place of REFUGE for wildlife that’s for sure, not to mention campers. It’s probably going to cost something else down the line in the way of natural resources too.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-12-091.asp.
 
 

In honor of Native American Wolf Moon Month our Federal Fish and Wildlife Service “made it much easier to kill wolves in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies region — even while they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act,” according to Defender’s of Wildlife. Nice tribute to our heritage huh?

Defenders went on to say that Secy. Kempthorne changed a rule that makes it easier to kill wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and allows the slaughter of wolves in the region of Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies. All the states need to do is PROVE that wolves are a MAJOR CAUSE of the inability for elk and deer to meet state management goals. Goals include how elk herds move about or behave. So wolves can be trapped or shot by wildlife officials if elk or deer move about differently. That’s a pretty big weight to hang around a little ole wolf neck and if the officials hang around the perimeter of Yellowstone long enough surely a wolf will stick its neck out and get it shot off.

I’m interested in the part that says PROVE. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming should have a really hard time proving wolves have lowered the numbers of elk in those states since Idaho’s Fish and Game reported elk populations at all time highs, 20% above management objectives for 2006. Wyoming’s elk numbers were 9000 over the state’s objective in 2006. In 2004, Montana had an elk population of over 100,000. So if herds are down, who’s the culprit?

On Ralph Maughn’s Wildlife News website, Bob Hoskins commented Sept. 4, 2006: “The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been making a concerted effort to reduce elk numbers through late season, cow-calf hunts over the last decade to bring the herds down to objective. In most herds in western Wyoming, these targeted hunts have been successful. When you hear in the press that wolves are killing Wyoming elk by the score, recognize that the claim is absolutely false. Worse, Wyoming G&F knows that it’s false. The fact is Wyoming’s hunters have been killing elk by the score in these late season hunts, by design. Many late season hunts will continue this coming hunting season.

He went on to say there is nothing wrong with the reduction program but quit blaming disappearing elk on the wolves. It’s a lie! This story is repeated in a USA article where biologist John Vucetich of Michigan Tech University in Houghton says wolves have been wrongfully blamed for a decline elk populations around Yellowstone in Montana. They studied weather, hunting, and wolves as factors.  Yellowstone has seen 7 years of drought and 1997 winter that killed many elk. They found the weather and hunting to blame for elk decline. Another biologist, Canadian Mark Boyce of the University of Alberta, and colleagues reached the same conclusion. They have an upcoming paper reporting that: “Montana increased the ‘hunter harvest’ quota on elk that leave Yellowstone grounds, issuing a higher-than-ever 2,882 hunting permits in 2000. A decline in the elk herd was thus guaranteed, Boyce says, even if wolves were not present.

So the poor wolves play the fall guy in all of this. Government officials and hunting lobby groups are the real menace. And all of it is unnecessary. Local ranchers partnering with Defenders of Wildlife to “expand their use of non-lethal wolf control measures” experienced no wolf-related livestock losses at all this grazing season. They believe “practical, inexpensive and non-lethal methods help reduce losses and conflicts while promoting better cooperation between ranchers, state and federal land managers and wildlife conservationists.”

According to Friends of Animals, Idaho’s Fish and Game Service “based the plan for the aerial gunning of wolves on a “trend count” in the Clearwater region, relying on astonishingly unscientific data in which eight cows were reportedly killed by wolves in the area.” The Dept. of Agriculture’s very scientific study of “collared” wolves living on the perimeter of cattle fields resulted in only 8 cattle kills total over 3 years time. Hmm?

Government officials are officially caught in lies again. None of the state’s involved have proof that wolves are lowering their elk populations drastically. They’ve been caught over-hunting and blaming the wolves. Ranchers have non-lethal alternatives that are affective and have been reimbursed for their losses by charitable organizations anyway. So there is no reason whatsoever for these wolf hunts especially aerial killing. You know with a war going on I’ve got to wonder the waste of energy for aerial hunters just looking to kill something. They need redirection. Know what I mean?

Check out the latest video of a disgusting wolf aerial hunt at: http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/ads_and_psas/tv_ad_to_stop_aerial_hunting.php.

As for changing the laws making it easier to kill wolves, tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that the rule change for hunting wolves is unacceptable. I personally would tell him more than that, and have.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=943&autologin=true&s_einterest=C3C4&s_Affiliate=savewolves_&JServSessionIdr004=4gy70ytnm2.app26a

About Idaho’s elk population and hunters: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2007/july/help-stop-the-bush-a.html.

About Wyoming’s hunting laws and elk decline due to hunters: http://wolves.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/wyoming-elk-numbers-are-9000-over-states-objective/.

About the USA Today article and Canadian biologist’s report that hunters are to blame for elk population decline: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-11-21-elk-yellowstone-mystery_x.htm.
 

This is a very good documentary about wolves by researcher Shaun Ellis and also a good tribute to “Wolf Moon” month of January. Find out more about wolves and why we should stop the eradication of this species once and for all. A majority of people have spoken, but legislators, especially in Alaska, continue the sportless killing by helicopter and plane.

 Shaun Ellis doesn’t recite a documentary at you, he lives with the wolves. It’s good. Watch it. Learn.

Peace

In honor of this being Wolf Moon month and that the fate of wolves in our national parks, in Idaho, and in Wyoming hangs in balance with a Secretary of Interior that is oblivious to thousands of voices to spare the wolf, I thought I’d do a piece on dogs and wolves. I ran into this interesting page along the way.

The website page is: http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/genetic1.htm. There is a list of References for Wolf-Dog Genetic History. I started to read the summaries of a variety of books written about the genealogy of the dog. Dogs are direct descendants of wolves, all dogs, little bitty pocket dogs, hairy dogs, smooth dogs, hunting dogs, even Pekinese dogs. The DNA of dog and wolf is almost identical. The dog is not the descendant of the combo wolf/jackal as many used to believe. Our dogs are tame wolves basically.

So I kept reading the short synopsis of each entry, there must be 15 of them on this page, and one after the other: “Scientists believe that wolves are the direct ancestors of today’s domestic dogs,” and “…on the basis of a large number of skull measurements and examinations of the size and structure of the brain, blood factors, and numbers of chromosomes that all dogs, whether Pekingese, bulldogs or Alsatians, were descended solely from the wolf…[t]he domesticated wolf is the dog,” and “Although the subject continues to be controversial, most authorities now agree that all dogs, from Chihuahuas to Dobermans are descended from wolves which were tamed in the Near East ten or twelve thousand years ago.” There were some summaries more genetically oriented, but all of them concurred the dog, man’s best friend is really a wolf in pedigree skin. That is except for one entry

That one entry is odd because it’s about proving whether the canine carries wolf blood. They have the same DNA for Pete’s sake. Trying to ascertain whether the dog carries actual wolf blood, when their DNA is identical, looks like a technical way around relating man’s best friend to the wolf. And look from whom and where the study comes. The Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. contracted a New York lab to do this study and look whose questioning the ties between wolf and dog, the Idaho Fish and Game Dept. back when the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was instituted there. It was stated “There is not presently a valid test that will guarantee analysis of whether a particular canine carries wolf blood. Certain DNA studies have been conducted by a New York laboratory under contract by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, but a much larger population study of wolf and dog breeds would have to be done before conclusive results can be obtained.” Jerry M. Conley, Director, Idaho Fish and Game Dept. From letter to Gov. Cecil D. Andrus, March 19, 1992.

Idaho and Wyoming have been gunning for wolves for years. It’s coming close to a head now. And it’s not about control of an untamed, voracious animal. It’s certainly not about maintaining balance in our ecosystems of which the wolf plays an important role.  And it’s not about killing livestock.  It’s about exterminating an animal that is the grandfather of our pet dog, so that man can hunt for sport instead. And sport hunting is about money. It always gets back to money.
 

This should be a pretty good show since Jack is bringing some rare and threatened species of animals on the set. And there should be a lot of good information about what is disappearing from the planet due to climate change. Jack is passionate about animals and so am I. I really don’t want to be the generation that remembers animals in the wild like the old Tarzan flicks because the animals no longer exist anywhere.

So is this how we celebrate the wolf in January 2008 America–slaughtering them as a species? President George Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secy. of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, (former Gov. of Idaho), current Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho, and Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming, as well as, Gov. Palin of Alaska are advancing their plans to skip the threatened and endangered species list and eradicate wolves by aerial helicopter, plane, snaring, etc., in Idaho and Wyoming. Alaska is already obliterating wolves by aerial hunting there. Gov. Palin just wants to keep the carnage going.  I find it interesting that while Gov. of Idaho Kempthorne pushed to get state control over wolves and now he is in charge of Dept. of the Interior overseeing this latest wolf assault.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970314a.html

While Kempthorne heads the Dept. of Interior, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Research Center has current reports that wolves have restored much balance in the wild, keeping coyote populations down. Another 3-year study radio collared wolves in packs whose habitats surrounded the perimeter of cattle ranches. The wolves constantly crossed through cattle herds at night. In 3 years, wolves killed only 8 cattle. The National Geographic Channel aired a segment about Yellowstone’s wolves being a great success for the environment there. Why the rush to kill wolves after allowing them to flourish, especially if they are maintaining a balance among other predators?

This concept of wolf slaughter via aerial planes and helicopters is a hideous irony considering the American wolf is a major and honorable component in Native American history. Native Americans like the Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapahoe admired wolves for the way they “operated in packs, caring for each other and sharing food, as well as the strength, endurance and hunting skills displayed by the Native American wolf. These were the same qualities that would help to ensure the survival of the tribe, qualities worthy of emulating.” http://www.native-languages.org/composition/native-american-wolf.html.

Running an animal to exhaustion from a helicopter or a plane to shoot it with sighted high-powered rifles from above isn’t honorable hunting skills. It’s sacrilegious that our government officials are willing to hunt an animal in such a cowardly manner while Native Americans revere the animal for its hunting skills. Wolves are not rats. Many Native American Tribes believed wolves to be teachers and called their scouts “wolves” that were brave enough to be the first to venture out and bring their experiences back to the tribe as wolves do for their pack. Right now many Christian Americans embrace creationist theory for their origins. Native Americans have their own creationist theory that includes wolves, “… the Medicine Wheel atop Medicine Mountain in the Bighorns, [] the Massaum Ceremony, “the medicine dance of the ancients,” a beautiful and integral part of traditional Cheyenne culture in which the wolf, and the “Wolf’s Lodge,” is essential to creation, to life, and renewal in the spiritual and physical,” http://www.infohub.com/vacation_packages/3367.html.

And so here we are in 2008 allowing an already dubious administration to slaughter an icon of our heritage by cowardly if not sadistic means while we cry to other nations to stop clubbing seals, hooking dolphins, and killing whales for research.  This administration attempts to evoke a sense of patriotism in everything else they do; yet they overlook the wolf. Look at some of the names of the leaders of some of the greatest tribes that once ruled America.

“Little Wolf was the Native American chief of northern Cheyenne. Little Wolf, who led a military society called the Bowstring Soldiers, was a leader in the Northern Plains wars. He and Sioux and Arapaho warriors fought together in the War for the Bozeman Trail, which was also known as Red Cloud’s War, from 1866 to 1868. Little Wolf was a signer of the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868,” http://student.britannica.com/comptons/article-9312204?

Among the signers of the Laramie Treaty were many native chiefs whose names included wolf: Of the Ogallalah band of Sioux chiefs there was High Wolf and Big Wolf Foot, of the Uncpapa band of Sioux chiefs was Wolf Necklace, and of the Arapahoe chiefs there was Spotted Wolf, Big Wolf, Wolf Mocassin, and Wolf Chief.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Kappler/Vol2/treaties/sio0998.htm.

There are many citizens interested in Native American culture that should embrace the seriousness of what is being proposed for wolf populations in these particular states. Out of heritage, patriotism, and humaneness for America’s wildlife, call or contact your congress people to stop this type of eradication process for living things once and for all. Contact the media for more coverage about wolves and their future in America.